Fibrous material balers, such as hay and straw balers, are known for compressing fibrous material and binding the material into bales bound by twine or wire. This type of machine is commonly used on farms and ranches for baling hay, straw, and other fibrous materials. This type of machine has also been used in various industrial and commercial applications. The trend in baling machine development has been to design machines capable of producing larger and larger bales to minimize handling; it being more efficient to handle fewer larger bales as compared to handling more numerous smaller bales. Such machines have been proposed based on conventional plunger-type systems wherein fibrous material is packed by means of a plunger to produce rectangular or square bales. Such machines has also been proposed based on conventional round bale systems wherein fibrous material is rolled upon itself. In these systems, the packing and compressing of the material must be interrupted in order to bind or tie each bale. Because of the shape of round bales, they have more spoilage than square bales; trapping rain and snow when they are stacked. Also, the shape of round bales prevents compact storage. Moreover, use of such machines in agricultural settings produces bales of tightly wrapped material that cannot be easily separated or loosened when the bale is opened.
Baling machines for fibrous bulk material have been proposed that employ an auger feeding mechanism to compact the material into a denser unit for binding; one of the latest being that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,009,062 issued to Oren D. Urich. Such as have been proposed have attempted to produce more compact, denser, bales than conventional plunger-type systems or round bale-type systems. Most such, however, appear to be rather complicated and employ complicated, unconventional binding mechanisms. Oftentimes, these systems employ reciprocating mechanisms to effect relative longitudinal movement between the auger feed mechanism and the binding compartment during the interval that the binding operation takes place in order for the auger feed mechanism to operate continuously. None appear to have been able to successfully supplant conventional plunger-type and round bale-type machines.
In the hay industry in particular, railcar loads of baled hay are being transported from the hay-growing regions of the country to other parts of the country. Present day hay baling machines of the conventional plunger-type do not produce bales that are both small enough to be loaded easily loaded onto and off-loaded from railcars and dense enough to fill a railcar to its weight limit. In the typical case, a railcar is filled to its volume capacity long before its weight capacity is reached. This case results in greater transport charges per ton than need be.
The smaller farming operations do not have any present day alternatives and, therefore, do not have ready access to long distance interstate railcar shipment of baled hay; the higher per ton shipping costs mitigating against profitable shipment by railcar. For the smaller farming operations to compete successfully in this long distance railcar market, they must have hay baling equipment that is affordable and that will produce relatively small and dense bales that can be handled on the farm without employing costly auxiliary equipment. And the bales must be dense enough that a railcar's load capacity can be reached before its volumetric capacity. For many such farming operations, the physical size of a bale that is dense enough should be on the order of 2 ft..times.2 ft..times.4 ft. up to 4 ft..times.4 ft..times.8 ft; with the latter size bordering on being too large for convenient handling. Many conventional plunger-type balers produce bales 14 in..times.18 in..times.4 ft.